The Death Of Charlie Kirk
The Inevitability of Political Violence and What Created This Moment
Edit: Since posting this Charlie Kirk has passed away.
As I speak this voice note into my iPhone Notes app, I’m receiving a flood of texts confirming that Charlie Kirk has been shot. Hopefully it goes without saying, but clearly it does not, that I am deeply saddened that we have reached a place where political violence has become a norm of communication.
In the week of the shooting, I think we need to move away from language that either condemns or endorses political violence, especially when it comes from the response of the oppressed. How can we even begin to feel alignment or alienation with the shooter when we have no idea of their motivations at this point? What’s clear to me is that there is historical precedent for everything we are experiencing. This particular version of fascism may be new to the world, but the ideology and resistance to it is not. A police car was set on fire within a mile of my Bed-Stuy apartment last month. I will no longer seek to condemn or affirm behavior like that. What I know is that when the police act as blind tools of an unjust empire, their cars will get set on fire. When Israel operates as an apartheid state for nearly a century, and resistance comes at the price of civilian lives, that should not come as a surprise, but as a statistical inevitability. Whether we affirm these conditions or not doesn’t feel like the most important conversation to me right now.
If I were to weigh the violence of this shooting against the violence of the rhetoric that Charlie Kirk has spouted, the scale truly only tips in one direction. There are many bad faith actors in today’s politics—Candace Owens, Brandon Tatum, Ben Shapiro—but Kirk stands among the worst. The Trump administration, in its first eight months, defunded countless social and scientific programs designed to keep people safe. Cancer research, after-school programs, welfare programs, healthcare—gone.
In April 2023, Charlie Kirk publicly stated:
“It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment.” 【Jason S. Campbell, Media Matters, April 6, 2023】
One of the most concrete examples: the Trump administration cut storm prediction technology. When a hurricane hit Texas, the city had no resources to warn residents or organize evacuations. Twenty people died. Charlie Kirk then went on television and blamed “DEI hires” for the failure—knowing full well that he himself had championed the policies that killed innocent people. To me, this is indistinguishable from murder. So to find that he has been shot—it does not bring me glee, but it does not invoke compassion either.
As Malcolm X put it so plainly after JFK was assassinated, the chickens are coming home to roost:
“I did not say that Kennedy’s death was a reason for rejoicing….Rather I meant that the death of Kennedy was the result of a long line of violent acts, the culmination of hate and suspicion and doubt in this country. You see, Lomax, this country has allowed white people to kill and brutalize those they don’t like. The assassination of Kennedy is a result of that way of life and thinking. The chickens came home to roost; that’s all there is to it. America—at the death of the President—just reaped what it had been sowing.”
Months ago, the President hosted a military parade in celebration of his birthday. Tens of thousands turned out in support. Yet, across 2,000+ American cities, an estimated 5 million people protested the parade and the fascist ideology it represents. By the data alone, empathy, community care, and love for one another vastly outnumber the people who support Trump’s agenda. We may not feel that reflected in government policy, but we should feel it in our streets and communities. As that passion grows among the people, chickens continue to roost. The empathy and passion are there to be utilized—it is our responsibility to act responsibly on them.
Finally, we must reckon with the history that legitimized the moment we’re in. Trump, and his puppet Kirk, is not a unique evil—or even an especially interesting one. He is the product of a system of white supremacy rooted in this country’s foundation. White people: the onus is on you to understand this legacy and act accordingly. If the goal is to “defeat Trump,” you will never succeed—because he is a vessel for an ideology. He is the inevitable conclusion of the same political system that killed Trayvon Martin, Emmett Till, Malcolm X, interestingly enough—Charlie Kirk—and that built American industry on the forced labor of enslaved Africans. You cannot separate American exceptionalism from American cruelty. That mental convenience has only ever existed for white people and for those who do not read.
In this era of political theatre, I think no opinion is truly past the threshold of conspiracy. We don’t know the motivations of the shooter. What I do know is that the Trump administration will use this as an engine to increase authoritarian rule. If they can send in the National Guard for homelessness, then they will for sure ravage entire communities to show power as one of their puppets has been disposed. This week the Supreme Court voted 3-6 in favor of racial profiling. Things will absolutely get worse before they get better.
If Charlie Kirk lives to see another day, then I hope he is able to reflect on what brought him to this point. I hope all fascists who use marginalized people as scapegoats for their insatiable greed begin to shake in their boots.
Unfortunately, Charlie Kirk died. Because I believe the news, in order to make money, presents the worst of humankind, and thus I don’t indulge it, I only really learned about Charlie Kirk. I understand that as an African American, I would find his rhetoric deplorable but I wish he was not assassinated. First, I don’t believe in political violence but second, the right will make him a martyr and Trump will use Kirk’s death to support a deeply troubling agenda.